Managerial Mayhem

White Collar Workout: 12 ways to build fitness into your insanely busy routine

May 192013

A white collar job is great exercise for your brain, but shoveling your way out of a pile of emails doesn’t burn many calories and a marathon meeting isn’t really a marathon. In the age of the busy information worker it takes extra effort and planning to rally your tired brain and get that workout in. But I believe it’s critical to your mental and physical well being.

I inherited a love of exercise from my Dad. He’s 66 and he just passed an amazing milestone. He has exercised every single day for the past 10 years. That includes every day he was traveling for work, every day he was sick, and even a day where he had eye surgery.

He doesn’t do it to show how tough he is. He has a calm demeanor and the physical presence of a business casual Gandhi with curly hair. He does it for his mental well being and probably because he’s slightly obsessive.

Maybe I’m slightly obsessive too, but I’m always trying to find ways to fit exercise into a busy routine. So in celebration of my Dad’s milestone, here are a few ways to keep your fitness going when you are busy, traveling, or pressed for time:

1. Progress, Not Goals – If you want to love exercise, don’t make it into a second job. You already have a regular job with intense goals. With your exercise, just focus on consistent improvement with no set goals or timeframes. Just keep getting better.

2. Consistency – When you are first starting, consistency trumps intensity. Later on that may reverse, but for now just keep the flow going. It’s better to do something small daily than to immediately go out and try to run an uphill marathon with bricks in your backpack.

3. Find What You Love – Exercise is not just running on a hamster wheel cardio machine at the gym. You have to try different things. You might be amazing at pickleball or floor hockey. You may like swimming, intense hiking, or you could be awesome at mountain unicycling.

4. Preparation – Whenever you go on a business trip, always bring your exercise gear. When you arrive at your hotel, before you go get dinner and drinks, do twenty minutes of hamster wheel cardio time. It’s not my first choice, but I’ll do it if I have to.

5. Drive Don’t Fly – If I have to do a business trip that is a moderate drive versus a short flight, I will drive so I can bring my bike. I use Strava.com or MapMyRide.com to look up local rides and make sure I have time to explore.

6. Research Local Activities – Almost every town has a bike or running club with activities for all fitness levels. When traveling, I’ve shown up to group rides in towns I’ve never been to before and been welcomed by great people. Local amateur athlete communities are almost always welcoming and positive.

7. Cure a Meat Hangover – I usually eat big meaty meals and drink more while traveling. Then I wake up with a meat hangover and a beer headache. In the morning I’ll suck down a cup of coffee and then, even when pressed for time, go do ten minutes on the treadmill. You burn 100 calories, but more importantly you get a sweat going, get rid of your headache, and cure your meat hangover.

8. Bike Commuting – My commute by car to the office is 25 minutes. By bike it’s 40 minutes. With the right gear and lighting it can be done year round and you just converted an hour a day of car time to an hour and a half of exercise time. Also, you will probably look good in tights.

9. Lunch Ride – We have a handful of cyclists at our office and we defined a lunch loop. It’s 15 miles and you go at whatever intensity or speed you want. We all use Strava to track our time and cheer on each other’s accomplishments. It’s great team building.

10. Profit and Loss – If you want to pay attention to calories, get one of the many calorie apps and track it. If you’ve ever managed a profit and loss statement, it’s the same thing, only calories burned is your revenue, and calories consumed is your cost. The net profit is your weight loss.

11. Intensity – Once you have built a great base of consistent fitness, you should try to increase intensity as long as you are healthy enough to handle it. When you are short on time, riding ten miles with five intense hill repeats is the best thing you can do for your fitness. I try to go all out anaerobic a few times per week. It’s hard, but it will catapult you to a new fitness level.

12. Training Partner – Find a person whose schedule meshes with yours and is on a similar trajectory. I’ve had a great training partner for the last few years who, despite tons of trash talking, is always reliable and game for pushing the limits.

In the end, remember that exercise should be as much about the experience as it is about just getting fit. You will feel better, meet great people, and if you start to enjoy it, you might take some of your precious weekend time and do it just for fun. That’s when you know you are hooked.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. I’d be interested in others’ tips for building fitness into their busy routines.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go do hill repeats until I puke.

Everybody Sells: 12 tips to help you sell anything to anyone

May 122013

The sooner you realize you are in sales, the better. No matter what job you have, you should strive to be a sales ninja. Why? Because even if you aren’t a salesperson, at a minimum you are selling your ideas to coworkers. At a maximum you are an executive representing your brand.

Having been in hundreds of actual sales meetings as a sales engineer with ornery prospects all up in my grill asking hard questions, I thought I might create a new sales training course called Heeeeeyaaaaaaa: Sales Ninja. It would be replete with intense role playing, mock negotiations, and five letter acronyms. There would be chest bumping, fist pumping, and to pass you would have to tackle a mock prospect and hog tie them with a Hugo Boss tie. After you pass you would get a Ninja outfit you can proudly wear to work on casual Fridays.

I quickly reconsidered that plan and instead just wrote another blog post. Here are my 12 tips to help you be better at sales:

1. Ask, Don’t Tell – Too many salespeople just start spewing facts. Instead, ask a lot of questions. Not just questions pertaining to your product, but questions that get to the heart of what your prospect wants. They will appreciate it, and it will help you hone your sales approach.

2. Tell Me Yeah, Yeah, No! – You want to say yes to everything your prospect wants, but you should be glad when you get to say no. By saying no you strengthen your yeses. People still expect salespeople to lie. You gain trust by saying no.

3. Push-away Close – If you feel like what you are selling isn’t a good fit for the prospect, just tell them. Sometimes it makes them look at the benefits of your product in a different way. Then they start trying to convince you why it still might actually be a good fit. Weird, but it happens.

4. Practice? We talkin’ ‘bout practice? – Yes, you must practice your presentations. So many people are subject matter experts, but they have cluttered slides and talk too much. It’s not just content that matters. You must work on clarity, pace of presentation, and meeting flow.

5. Big Face Rollie – Make sure your appearance is not distracting. Don’t wear a big face rollie (Rolex for those of you who don’t listen to as much rap music as I do). It will only be distracting. Make sure your appearance is put together, but nothing stands out.

6. Likable – Be likable and genuine. People buy from people they like. Spend time on relationships so people get to know the real you and vice versa. Trust, not perfection, will get you referrals. Hopefully you actually are likable.

7. Avoid Strange Offers – I’ve heard about a company with a corporate jet offering plane rides to prospects. While that might be fun, it also makes prospects wonder just how much money you are making and why you have a jet?

8. Sell Benefits, Not Features…Then Sell Features – Sell the benefits of your product, but also sell features. Even the most analytical decision makers still buy cars with adaptive cruise control and iPhone’s because they have a lot of megapixels. People need benefits, but like features.

9. Understand the Ego Buy – Understand that some people will buy because they want to keep up with their peers. This is not necessarily an irrational reason to buy, so stop spewing details and just paint them in a picture of success.

10. Project Manage to a Close – The best salespeople see themselves as project managers removing obstacles to the close. People will be looking for reasons not to buy, you must clear the path and make it obvious that buying is their best option.

11. Organized but Flexible – Try to nicely package your products and services, but be willing to flex them to the prospect’s needs where possible. You want to be organized, but not rigid.

12. Enhance the Brand – Remember that everything you do and say is enhancing or deteriorating your brand. It’s real in an ethereal, intangible sort of way. It’s like karma or Pink Floyd. Be your brand and your brand will be you.

That’s all. Now you are a sales ninja. Since you didn’t pay me, I’m not going to give you a ninja outfit, but that doesn’t mean you can’t buy your own and wear it on Fridays.

Troubled Water: 6 leadership tactics to help you through tough times

May 052013

When things are sailing along, you are keeping the customer satisfied, growth is a steady five percent, employees know their jobs, and your market is stable, leadership may seem like a fun hood ornament attached to the top of your business, like steer horns on your Cadillac.

When times are tough, revenue is uncertain, markets are in turmoil, employees are saying bye bye love, and your operations manager, Cecilia, is launching verbal jabs at you like a boxer, leadership becomes the engine that keeps that aging cadillac on the road.

In those times, leadership takes on a different tone and you have to adjust your actions. Here are some tactics that may help:

1. Bridge – In tough times leaders can feel like a nail getting pounded daily. You would rather be a hammer, so you turn around and start pounding all your employees. That only makes matters worse. Instead, leaders should be the bridge that helps the team make their way across that troubled water to firmer ground. This mentality lays the groundwork for all other actions you take.

2. Write Me – Decisiveness is key during your tough times, but it’s an art form to know when to act. Act too fast and you look like you are flailing. Wait too long and you are accused of being wishy washy. You must assess your runway, plan a decision timeframe, gather feedback from employees, customers, advisors, etc. Then write your your action plan in a company wide email, but don’t send it. Instead just reread it a few days later. What seems like a good plan in your head may seem awkward and inconsistent when written. Plans in troubled times are often imperfect; don’t make matters worse by having it be half baked. Only launch when you feel good about the overall communication.

3. Condor – When times are tough, you might be tempted to roll up your sleeves and show the employees how it’s done. It’s always good to pitch in, but if you do it at the expense of keeping your perspective, you will miss the next big issue on the horizon. You need to be like a condor flying high above and looking for the interplay, connections, and communication problems. Because your team is in the details and under stress, they will have trouble keeping perspective. You must keep and communicate that perspective.

4. So Long – People will leave your company in tough times. It’s not necessary a bad reflection on them. It may be a bad reflection on you, or it may just be that they didn’t want to deal anymore and they have options. It’s really tough when they were great employees, but you must not overreact. When your longtime accountant Frank leaves, it’s going to be tough to get someone as thorough and loyal, but you will manage. You have to say so long Frank and then just keep going and plan your next move. Hopefully even after Frank leaves, you will stay in touch and maintain a relationship.

5. Driver – When things are really tough it may seem like everyone has turned into zombies and you are the only living person in the company. This is when you become the driver. You’ve taken people’s feedback, you’ve asked your advisors, you’ve written your plans. You must swing into action mode. You must implement and re-implement. You are the one who puts the wheels in motion in as orderly a manner as possible.

6. For The Asking – Once the plans are clear and you have consensus, you can start asking for specific bigger contributions from team members. You have laid the groundwork of a revival and people will want to be part of it. Sometimes all you have to do is ask and they will go above and beyond.

Tough times will make you weary, but as a leader you must be the bridge over that troubled water. You will span that turmoil and help everyone get from their old firm ground to new firm ground. You might have to change, you might have to adapt, your company might not look the same when it’s done, but you can make it happen. You have to.

And thank you Simon and Garfunkel for inspiring this article. If you haven’t listened to the Bridge Over Troubled Water album in a while, I would highly recommend a re-listen.

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